The survival strategies of the wilderness: Noise, silence, and the delicate balance of life

“ After tamping the freshly loosened earth with its nose, above, and at other times in the whole process, the prairie dog takes a break and cleans its long claws, page 56, and its nose.
58
Gregariousness is a common trait of many plains animals. In a land where movement is necessary and concealment difficult to achieve, it provides a definite survival advantage. Bison calves find protection in the herd, where their defense is the concern of all adults. Pronghorns take turns as sentries, allowing the other members of the group to rest and feed. Coyotes are more effective when hunting in pairs. ”

“ Reader, suppose yourself wandering over some extensive prairie, far beyond the western shores of the Mississippi. While your wearied limbs and drooping spirits remind you of the necessity of repose and food, you see the moon’s silvery rays glitter on the dews that have already clothed the tall grass around you. Your footsteps, be they ever so light, strike the ear of the watchful Kildeer, who, with a velocity scarcely surpassed by that of any other bird, comes up, and is now passing and repassing swiftly around you. ”

“ He knew by heart every individual clump of bunch grass in the miles of red shaggy prairie that stretched before his cabin. He knew it in all the deceitful loveliness of its early summer, in all the bitter barrenness of its autumn. He had seen it smitten by all the plagues of Egypt. He had seen it parched by drought, and sogged by rain, beaten by hail, and swept by fire, and in the grasshopper years he had seen it eaten as bare and clean as bones that the vultures have left. After the great fires he had seen it stretch for miles and miles, black and smoking as the floor of hell. ”

“ A prairie dog sounds the alarm, alerting the whole town about an impending danger, such as a coyote, a ferret, or a person. The rest take up the call, and as the danger approaches each burrow the inhabitants duck underground. The others continue to stand erect and sound the warning. By listening carefully, those underground can track the location of the enemy. When two high-pitched notes are sounded, all rush for cover, for that means a hawk is overhead or nearby and there’s no time to wait and repeat the signal. ”

“ As soon as they throw up the head, and keep the ears still, their suspicions have been aroused, and if you want venison, you must be as still as a rock, till your game is again lulled into security, As soon as the ears begin flapping again, you may continue your stalk, but at the slightest noise, the noble buck will be off like a flash of lightning. You should never go out in the forest with white clothes, as you are then a conspicuous mark for all the prying eyes that are invisible to you. ”

“ And, again, we note that, where the combination of actions, or what we may now call the conduct, is not adjusted to the environment, the creatures' chances of life are small, great numbers dying for each whose life approaches the average duration. An improved adjustment of conduct to environment increases the chances of survival, many attaining and some passing the average of longevity in their particular type or order. ”

“ But the longer the tunnel the better would it serve in the above-described means of escape; therefore natural selection would tend to preserve the birds which made the longest tunnels, until the utmost benefit that length of tunnel could give had been attained.
And similarly, I believe, all the host of animal instincts may be fully explained by the joint operation of these two causes—intelligent adjustment and survival of the fittest. For now I may draw attention to another fact which is of great importance, viz., that instincts admit of being modified as modifying circumstances may require. ”

“ All kinds of rapacious birds and beasts of prey having proved powerless, the last word of science in this warfare is the inoculation of cholera! The villages of the prairie-dogs in America are one of the loveliest sights. As far as the eye can embrace the prairie, it sees heaps of earth, and on each of them a prairie-dog stands, engaged in a lively conversation with its neighbours by means of short barkings. As soon as the approach of man is signalled, all plunge in a moment into their dwellings ”

“ The whole chase is a school for silence and self-restraint. Should you tread carelessly, a twig breaks and your chance is lost; should a thorn run right up under your nail from end to end, you must not complain; and should the bitter blows dealt you in the face by the rebounding twigs, or the tearing and strangling of the thorny creepers, at last extract an exclamation, your chance is over for the day.
For over an hour I bore all the malice of the forest fiend silently and uncomplainingly. ”

“ The end and the means, the gamester and the game, — life is made up of the intermixture and reaction of these two amicable powers, whose marriage appears beforehand monstrous, as each denies and tends to abolish the other. We must reconcile the contradictions as we can, but their discord and their concord introduce wild absurdities into our thinking and speech. No sentence will hold the whole truth, and the only way in which we can be just, is by giving ourselves the lie; Speech is better than silence; silence is better than speech; — All things are in contact; ”

“ Our approach had driven every one to his home in our immediate vicinity, but at the distance of some hundred yards the small mound of earth in front of each burrow was occupied by a prairie dog, sitting erect on his hinder legs, and coolly looking about for the cause of the recent commotion. Every now and then, some citizen, more adventurous than his neighbor, would leave his lodgings, on a flying visit to a friend, apparently exchange a few words, and then scamper back as fast as his legs would carry him. ”

“ Prairie dog towns, populous as cities of man a minute before their approach, went lifeless, desolate, as they passed through. In the infrequent draws and creek beds between the low, rolling hills, great-eyed cotton tails scampered to cover or, like the antelope, just out of harm's way, watched the passage of this strange being, man. Wonder of wonders that display of life would have been to another generation ”

“ If the wave of alarms is particularly intense, the animals usually rush to burrow mounds, where they will await further developments. Usually only the 63 prairie dogs in the immediate vicinity of an enemy will retire below ground. The remainder of the population continues to observe and sound the alarm. As an enemy approaches a particular burrow, the frequency and intensity of the occupant’s warning bark increases. Only at the last moment will the prairie dog cut short its tirade, capping it with an indignant churk as it dives below ground. ”

“ It was the trail-cry of a wolf, followed by the pack’s terrifying answer. As a rule, wolves hunt in silence; when they run a deer there is seldom a yelp from beginning to end of the chase. Occasionally, however, when a solitary wolf starts big game and wants help, he utters a peculiar cry; and that cry, coming from the mother wolf who leads the pack or from the old dog wolf who hunts by himself, rouses up a wild impulse, electric, irresistible. At the tingling summons every wolf in the pack leaves his own affairs, even the food he has just caught, and darts away to join the hunt. ”

“ There's no hurry; he won't come down unless our noise frightens him. Let us go quietly; there's plenty of time. Belcher has got his eye on him, and will stay by him till we come." We travelled quietly, and as silently as we could for near half a mile, and as we rounded a low but steep point of a hill, there sat bruin, some twelve rods from us, in the forks of a great birch tree, forty feet from the ground, looking down in calm dignity upon the dogs that were baying and leaping up against the tree beneath him. Did anybody ever notice what a meek, innocent look a bear has when in repose? ”

“ In case we had killed no game, then we had our elephant meat to fall back upon.
How silent the forest was! Not a human being besides ourselves was to be seen. A leaf falling, a bird singing, a wild guinea-fowl calling for its mate, the footsteps of a gazelle, the chatter of a monkey, the hum of a bee, the rippling of the water of some beautiful little stream as it meandered through the forest, were the only noises that ever disturbed the stillness of this grand solitude. ”

“ You may range the vast solitude for hours and start no living thing; but you have never a thought that the woods are deserted. No, they are only hiding their wild creatures, which may step forth at any moment. Day or night, summer or winter, the wilderness is always animate. As you move through it on careful feet, awed by its mystery or sublimity, you are every instant in the presence of life, a life so full and deep that silence is its only expression.
[233] THE TRAIL OF THE LOUP-GAROU A HOWLING as of wolves fetched me wide-awake one night in my winter camp in Quebec. ”

“ Yet even on moonlit nights such voices are rather exceptional. Wild birds and beasts go their ways in silence for the most part; the typical wilderness night is so quiet, so peaceful, that an occasional cry seems part of a mighty stillness. ”

“ The instinct of feigning injury by certain birds presents a peculiar difficulty. As we all know, partridges, ducks, and plovers, when they have a brood of young ones, and are alarmed by the approach of a carnivorous quadruped, such as a dog, will pretend to be wounded, flapping along the ground with an apparently broken wing in order to induce the four-footed enemy to follow, and thus to give time for the young brood to disperse and hide themselves. ”

“ That is certainly true of our northern forests, where a few wild creatures lift their voices, joyously, it seems to me, in the evening twilight, but where “the dead vast and middle of the night” passes in a silence that is almost painful to human ears. ”

“ And in some places the most dreaded predator of all is the black-footed ferret, which enters the burrow itself to surprise and trap its prey. But eradication programs against the prairie dog have made the ferret nearly extinct; none has been seen at Devils Tower since the late 1800s. Some of the other predators of the prairie dog also have been nearly eliminated by man. And with the loss of natural predators, prairie dog populations flourish rapidly. Unless these predators are allowed to make a comeback, prairie dog control programs will be inevitable. ”

“ There’s only one reason as I can think of that would make ’em vicious, sir: they’re starvin’—that’s why.”
“Nonsense,” cried Hallibut. “Why, the heavy timber is alive with food.”
“Yes, sir, I know that. But you see, sir, these wolves can’t get into th’ ’eavy timber; at least they won’t go. They won’t go through a peopled settlement, an’ they can’t pass back into the woods by the way they came, sir.”
“And why can’t they?”
“Well, sir, I think it’s ’cause you’ve put that mill on the creek. You see they must ’ave come by way of the lower swale—hit’s the only way they could come. ”

“ Every Bushwhacker’s home had a jug of whiskey in it—usually under the bed,—a dog on the doorstep, and sheep, pigs, and cattle in the barnyard. These barnyards had tall rail-fences around them. In the winter months the wolves sometimes tried to scale the fences, and bears tried to dig beneath them. Then the dog would bark and the man would come out with his long brown rifle, and besides bear-steak for breakfast next morning there would be a pelt for the Bushwhacker.
And so the years passed, and the Bushwhackers lived their simple, happy lives and found life good. ”

“ The scream of the steam-whistle has succeeded the old stage-horn, and the iron horse taken the place of those of flesh and blood. Change is written in great glowing letters upon everything. It stands out in blazing capitals everywhere. All things are on the move! Forward! and forward! is the word. And who would, who CAN, stand still amidst the universal rush? Only a century ago, from the valley through which the majestic Hudson rolls its everlasting flood, westward to the mighty Mississippi, westward still to the Rocky Mountains, and yet westward to the Pacific, was one vast wilderness ”

“ Here and there a 'clearing' let in the sunlight, and the woodman's axe broke the forest stillness as he battled against the brave old trees. The smoke of burning fallows was occasionally seen, wreathing in dense columns towards the sky. Civilization, enterprise, energy and new life were just starting on that career of progress which has moved onward till the wilderness, under the influence of their mighty power, has been made to blossom as the rose. Those were pleasant times, as we look upon them now, just fading into the dim and shadowy past, but they were times of toil and privation. ”

“ Civilization is pushing its way even towards this wild and, for all agricultural purposes, sterile region, and before many years even the Rackett will be within its ever-extending circle. When that time shall have arrived, where shall we go to find the woods, the wild things, the old forests, and hear the sounds which belong to nature in its primeval state? Whither shall we flee from civilization, to take off the harness and be free, for a season, from the restraints, the conventionalities of society, and rest from the hard struggles, the cares and toils, the strifes and competitions of life? ”

“ Further, how do we account for the survival of deer, antelope, fox, rabbit, moose, beaver, bear, and so many other animals? How could climate be so selective? If the dire wolf died, why not the timber wolf? If the short-faced bear, why not the grizzly? If one form of rabbit and three forms of antelope, why not all rabbits and all antelopes? If disease instead of climate was the great eliminator—as some have suggested—we face the same dilemma. ”

“ There was no permanence, no sureness, no stability, no stillness anywhere. Often Anne closed her machine and slipped away unable to endure the noise and confusion. But out upon the streets the noise and confusion continued. People hurried everywhere. Cars clanged by obeying many desires to go in many directions. Newsboys shrieked their announcements of murders, explosions, and terrible deeds of violence. Sometimes Anne sought quietness by the sea, but, gripped in the law of ebb and flood, the sea roared or moaned or whimpered to its degree of strength. ”